A big truck is hauling two defective nuclear warheads to a safe location. They started to leak, however, so they had to set it on an automated course. The Blast Corps has been called in to clear the way for it, because if this truck hits anything, the warheads will go off and start a nuclear winter.

So you, a pilot of the Blast Corps, have to do the destroying. You have various vehicles at your disposal to get the job done. So, get started before that truck destroys everything!

Blast Corps (BlastDozer in Japan) was released for the Nintendo 64 by Rare in 1997. It was later included as one of the 30 featured games of Rare Replay for Xbox One.

This game provides examples of:

Achievement Mockery: The highest rank can only be achieved by getting a platinum medal on every stage in the game. Said rank is called "You can stop now".

All There in the Manual: If you sit at the title screen without starting the game, you'll get background information on the Blast Corps team members and the nuclear warheads, but it takes nearly 10 minutes to see everything. If your game didn't come with an instruction manual and you blazed through the title screen, you'd probably don't know what's going on other than the threat of a nuclear explosion.

Artistic License – Engineering: For starters, the obstacles you collide into always strangely explode, then leave nothing behind. Buildings that are destroyed in real-life always leave an awful mess of rumble and debris behind, thus the carrier still doesn't have a clear path. In real-life, basic physics will not permit you to demolish buildings and clear the site, quickly. It takes weeks, even months, to do. The structures we build are largely steel and concrete reinforced constructs - you can't just plough an excavator in there, and hope for the best.

Awesome, but Impractical: The American Dream, Muscle Car, and Police Car for the most part can't tear down any of the buildings, but only get you to a location faster. They are the most useful choices in the bonus racing levels, though.

Bonus Level: The Moon, Mercury. Venus, Mars, and Neptune are extra levels that has varying levels of gravity that affect your performance. The Moon can be played after you cleared the shuttle level, but the rest can only be unlocked once you gotten gold medals and all the communications satellites back on Earth.

Boring, but Practical: The Ramdozer for the most part; although not as good as the mechas, it can still clear through most buildings without a problem by simply driving normally through them. Also, bonus points for not being the Backlash.

The A-Team Van, because while all vehicles do damage it seems to be on par with the Skyfall.

Cool Car: Any of them. Ballista and Skyfall take the cake though. But never the Backlash.

Damage-Proof Vehicle: No matter how much destruction they cause, the vehicles you control never even slow down. They can only be destroyed in two ways (which in turn ends the level for you); one is to fall into a hazard such as lava, the other is to run into a roving enemy truck, and each of the hazards only show up in a small handful of bonus levels.

Excuse Plot: If the truck hits anything, the warheads will go off, so it's been set to go to its destination straight through anything in its path. What? All right, so maybe the missiles are going to blow and don't have time to move around buildings. Except the warheads tour all over the world looking for their safe zone.

It also never explains why, with all of the equipment at your disposal and the fate of the world at stake, you so often have to use vehicles like the Backlash, or why a harbor would have a series of shallow pits in the way of the most direct path through it.

Fake Difficulty: The game will not let you use the best tools for the job. Instead of powerful mechas that can easily remove obstacles in the carrier's way, on missions you'll be randomly stuck with the most ill-suited machinery imaginable. Worse of all, there's no reason provided why you can't opt for a different more suitable machine at their disposal. Get used to seeing and driving Backlash... a lot.

Fake Longevity: When you first play the game, the story missions only end when the truck reaches the endpoint or you enter the Blast Corps semi, regardless of how efficiently you've taken out the obstacles in its path. This has the effect of forcing you to redo them all for gold medals once that option is available, since it's impossible to get a lower time than what the truck normally takes.

Forced Tutorial: You need to play through the tutorial levels for Backlash, Sideswipe, J-Bomb, Thunderfist, and Skyfall in order to progress through the game. Fortunately, the tutorials themselves are easily skippable scrolling text played before the actual levels.

Goomba Stomp: Most vehicles, even the "bonus" cars that are not really designed to destroy buildings, will gain significant destructive power if they are in the air. Even the infamous Backlash can plow straight through buildings without having to spin if it is able to get a little hang time. This is Skyfall's entire gimmick, as aside from the Nitro Boost it has to help propel itself into the air, it otherwise doesn't carry much more power than the aforementioned bonus cars when it's on the ground.

Ground Pound: The J-Bomb's primary method of taking out tougher structures when simply landing on them won't destroy them quickly.

Humongous Mecha: The J-Bomb, in which you fly up and stomp on the obstacles to get rid of them.

It's a Wonderful Failure: Let the truck hit something and you get to witness two nice big explosions. To make things worse, the game will show a replay of your previous run from the view of the carrier, including the explosion.

It's Up to You: Not only are you the only driver for all of the wildly different demolition vehicles, but no one else can even guide rail-driven trains and boats to provide platforms for the missiles to drive over. Granted, no one really wants to hang out by those missiles, even if they do threaten nuclear winter anyway.

Lava Adds Awesome: One J-Bomb side mission features a few small volcanoes. Another one features a large volcano that the entirety of the stage takes place in. Just be careful not to touch the lava walls or floor, or else "MISSION FAILED!"

Law of 100: Each main level has 100 little RDUs to activate, counting towards 100% completion of the level rather than extra lives.

Made of Explodium: Your task is greatly facilitated by the fact that buildings can explode due to things as small as you getting out of the car.

The Backlash is probably the most unusual of the bunch; instead of ramming into or dive-bombing buildings like with most of the other vehicles, with this one you need to hit buildings with the back of the vehicle while drifting through a turn; the faster, the better (unless there's a rock nearby; if the Backlash is off the ground, it can do a great deal of head-on damage). Since this is easier said than done and it appears in many levels, the Backlash has a reputation among fans of the game.

The Ballista and the Sideswipe are the only vehicles that collect items to launch attacks to destroy buildings. The Ballista is a motorcycle that launches missiles, while the Sideswipe extends rams out of its sides.

One-Hit-Point Wonder: The nuclear truck itself. Even the slightest jolt will cause the missiles to explode.

100% Completion: After you get all the gold medals on Earth from all the missions and side missions, you then can play missions on other planets. Upon getting all gold on those, you get the chance to go for platinum medals. Bronze medals are worth 1, silver 2, gold 3, and platinum 4. Every twelve points, you get a rank. The final rank you can earn is "You Can Stop Now."

Word of God says that the game is supposed to be impossible for one person to get ALL of the Platinum Medals, although determined players have completed the entire game.

One-Man Army: YOU, the player are, unfortunately. It says Blast Corps in the name, but you are the only one doing anything to avert a nuclear crisis. Your comrades won't get off their backsides to pilot any of the other available machinery, but are however quick to scold you when you can't man the fort alone.

Palette Swap: The Moon, Mars, and Mercury all use the same image on the map in different colors. Ditto for Venus and Neptune.

Racing Ghost: These show up in the straight racing levels, to make it easier for you to top your previous time.

Rule of Fun: Don't worry about the survivors that need to flee, or the fact that everyone is freaking out about the truck rolling through town, just clear a path!

Serial Escalation: After getting the nuclear missiles detonated safely and helping the space shuttle land safely, you're encouraged to get gold medals in all the levels. Once you do, you're then told to do it all over again, but faster. After that, you are told to do it again for platinum medals.

Take Your Time: Practice your skills, take part in races, and play each group of the main levels in any order you want; the missiles will always be a few seconds away from planetary annihilation by the time you arrive on the scene.

The End of the World as We Know It: Leaking nuclear warheads are threatening everything in a several mile radius and it will bring nuclear winter should the slightest jolt to the truck occur, which will cause the missiles to explode. The Blast Corps team can do nothing but clear a path until they can gather some scientists to come up with a plan to detonate the missiles safely.

Title Theme Drop: The music from the title screen plays during Glory Crossing, which is one of the last seven missions of the main storyline.

Timed Mission: The entire premise of the game. You only have a limited amount of time to clear buildings and structures before the truck carrying the nuclear warheads crashes into something and causes the missiles to explode. The damaged shuttle also falls into this trope since you have a limited amount of time to clear out the entire map before it lands.

Video Game Cruelty Potential: You don't have to destroy every single building and structure in the entire game, but if you want to fully complete the game, you gotta wreck everything!

MISSION 1: Clear path for carrier on each main level. MISSION 2: Activate all RDUs and destroy all buildings to earn second gold. MISSION 3: After completing main levels, find all 6 scientists to ensure a controlled detonation. MISSION 4: Achieve gold on all levels to commence Time Attack.

Video Game Physics: The bad variety. In real-life its straightforward to scoop up objects in an excavator's bucket. You can't do that in Blast Corps. Your excavator glides about, pushing ticking TNT crates that in turn, have a mind of their own and through no fault of your own, slide right out of your bucket when you're trying to use them.

You Break It, You Profit: Strangely enough, in a game full of destruction with money values assigned to everything, there's only one of these levels: Salvage Wharf.

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